friend, Wendy Johnson. Wendy's been a student of Zen for 20 years. This is her 20 year anniversary. And she was lay ordained by Richard Baker many years ago and studied at Tassajara and for the longest time has been at Green Gulch, taking care of the valley there, farming and gardening and teaching others how to do so. She's also a student of Thich Nhat Hanh and has received the precepts from him this past summer. And it's just a very warm spirit in the tradition of Zen and so we welcome her here. Thank you for coming. Good morning. I'm really happy to be here. This is a wonderful time of year to meet together, to talk, when everything everything in the natural world is going underground and we can get a little confused about this and think nothing's really happening, but in fact it's to my mind and body it's the most active time of the year because of all the work that's happening underground it's not being seen right in front of us

[01:27]

I'm thinking this morning about a wonderful piece of graffiti seen in Greenwich Village. A friend of mine told me about this scrawl on a big brick wall in the old part of New York. Dreaming is important. Sleeping is important. Waking up is an emergency. I told that to my husband and my 15-year-old son this morning, and they said, yeah, dreaming is really important, sleeping is important, waking up is a drag. But I think that this time of year, right now, and especially today, today is November 21st, Tomorrow, for me, will always be the day that I remember John Kennedy's assassination, November 22nd. So when Karen asked me to come and speak, to join you today, I felt a mixture of apprehension and also excitement because I know that what comes up for me in this time of year is very raw material coming up out of that network of underground roots

[02:47]

And what may emerge out of the dark umber face of the earth can be very surprising. A little unorthodox. I said to her, it's a little raw what comes up right now in this season. But I'm really happy to be able to speak with you because I think together we have a lot of work to do. We have a treasure of work to do. Our society and our world doesn't give much honor to the importance of fallowness, to letting the field of our life be a naked field or an uninterrupted world. A good friend of mine recently asked me, what is the source of the garden? And what came up for me was an empty field. The garden of our life begins in an empty field. This Raksu, two years ago, during the winter of 1990, I was a head student.

[03:55]

You know, head student is like being Shuso, except if you're a layperson, you call yourself a head student. And I worked with Norman Fisher. He was the officiating priest for a practice period at Green Gulch, which happened during the Persian Gulf War. And there were 16 of us practicing meditation. every day during that time. And my raksu was a little ratty. So I gave it to Blanche and I said, do you think you could stiff this up a bit, Blanche? It's been through a lot. Do you think you could fix it up? And she looked at it with a mixture of horror and, kind of, ugh, because it really had been through quite a lot, including numerous hours of gardening. And she took it into her dragon's cave and whipped out this new raksu, which Norman presented to me with the whole Sangha present in the end of the practice period. Actually, I remember it as a very difficult day. It was during Sashin. It was the day that the ground war started in the Middle East.

[05:01]

And nobody was listening to the radio except us. So we had this secret and we had this new raksha. And he wrote on the back of it, breathe and go deep. Now, that's exactly what's happening during this time in our lives, and it's what's happening in the natural world right now. The entire world is breathing and going deeply. That's the basis of a fallow field. And I think I was thinking about the raksha I said to Karen this morning, because she remarked, oh, what a nice raksha. You remembered the old one, didn't you? The old one had a lot of history. And I need to wear Peter's because yours looks so bad. Anyway. And I always treated it with a lot of reverence. It just absorbed everything. Anyway, that's what this is all about. I was thinking about the Raksha this morning, though, because of this line that we chant in the morning, a field far beyond form and emptiness.

[06:01]

Every morning, you know, those of you that wear these little miniature robes, the Buddhist robe, we put them early in the morning after meditation, put them on our heads and chant this chant says, a field far beyond form and emptiness. Now I open Buddha's rope, a field far beyond form and emptiness. The Tathagata's teaching for all beings. When I think of the natural world at this time and when I think of our inspiration and our source coming from an empty field, I always think of a field far beyond form and emptiness. I'd like to try to talk a little bit about this this morning. I'd like to try to talk about material that is for me quite raw and quite important. And it has to do with a long-time discussion I've been having with one of my good friends, a person that Meili and I practiced with in Minnesota years ago, a student of Kadagiri Roshi's. During that time in 1987 when we were practicing at Hokyoji Temple near the Mississippi River, this friend and I began a discussion on what is

[07:09]

actually happening when you go to a meditation center. And it was his observation that two kinds of activities happen in meditation centers. And I want to talk about this this morning. He observed that people come to practice meditation because it represents for them a field of action. And he also observed that people come to meditation centers to find a safe haven from the world. So, we began this discussion which went on walking through the fields of Minnesota and has continued now that this friend also lives in the Bay Area. Now we continue, we've continued this discussion. What does it mean to take up our practice as a field of action and connection with our world? And at the same time, to look very distinctly at this necessity to find a safe haven or a fallow place

[08:12]

from tremendous activity and confusion in our world? This is a very vital question for me. I brought a leaf from the ginkgo tree. Do you know the ginkgo tree? I'll show you a ginkgo tree against my Vietnamese coat. This is a leaf from this tree. It's an important reminder. The Ginkgo is the oldest living tree that we know. It comes from prehistoric times, 150 million years ago. It's actually a living fossil. Remarkable tree. When I think about safe haven from the world, I think of Ginkgo biloba. If you've ever studied the leaf of the Ginkgo tree, it has a pattern, a venation pattern, which is absolutely distinct.

[09:20]

And actually we found fossilized remains from ancient times of this leaf. Its pattern has remained unchanged, unaffected by the capriciousness of the world. This ancient beast has continued. One has to respect a being that simply refuses to evolve. That's the Ginkgo biloba. About a week ago, we did a memorial service at Green Gulch for Petra Kelly and for Geert Bastiaan. Petra Kelly helped to found the Green Party in Europe. She was an ardent peace worker. You probably know about her life. An ardent peace worker, a very vital feminist, a believer in the importance of ecology and meditation working together, and a real protectress of nonviolence in our world, a real voice for nonviolence. She and her man were found dead in their apartment in Bonn.

[10:25]

They'd been dead for three weeks before their friends found them. It's a rather amazing story, one that gets under your skin. About 30 of us gathered at Green Gulch to remember their life, to bring them up. And we planted this ginkgo tree. The leaf is from the tree, this tree. We planted for them. I didn't know her. She's exactly my age, 44 years old. And when I heard the lifeline of her life and her work as a 13-year-old woman, young woman, she said, I'll either be a nun in a third world country or I'll find a political party that doesn't, isn't based on fighting. Find a political party that can make a difference in the world. So this was her vow. And when it came time to choose a plant in her honor, the ginkgo came up for us as her tree, as their tree.

[11:26]

Do you know that in the wild world there are no living specimens of the Ginkgo? They don't occur in the wild. They were only preserved through the care and attention of human beings. It's a sacred tree of China. When we talk about safe haven from the world, it's important to remember that a tree of the stature and historical importance of this tree never would have been preserved had it not been for the monks of ancient China. who understood that it was a treasure and grew it in the temple grounds while many of the other trees of China were cut. This tree was preserved and it remains as a living specimen of tenacity and determination. I'm trying to be kind to this idea of a safe haven from the world because I'm not so comfortable in it. This is why I chose to bring a ginkgo leaf to talk about it because my mind tends toward the field of activity.

[12:36]

My mind prefers the field of activity. So I'm trying to look with real care and attention at the other side of the equation that balances what I want to promote. Now there's another aspect about the Ginkgo tree that's important. It's a tree that because of its ancientness, has learned how to exist in the pollution of our world. In fact, it has the remarkable ability to clean the air like no other botanical specimen. You know, on the Page Street, in the Page Street neighborhood, right near Highway 101, there's a beautiful ginkgo tree dropping its leaves in the fall, it shines in the fall, and drops its leaves on the streets, a steady daily reminder that I'm ancient enough to clean up your mess. Which is true.

[13:38]

It absorbs pollution and thrives on pollution. It must have had its predators and enemies in prehistoric time. Obviously, because there are no wild specimens left. But pollution is not among them. So here's a tree that exists in our polluted world and does just fine. Therefore, I think the Ginkgo biloba is a great teacher. The tree itself stands like a pagoda. It's described as a great gawking pagoda. Most trees have cylindrical trunks. It has a conical trunk tapering at the top and these kind of angular branches that reach it. It looks like a beast from another realm, from a different world. And when you look up underneath the Ginkgo tree, it looks like a pagoda, the eaves of the pagoda. So I bring this leaf forward to ask us to think about what it means to find a safe haven from the world that doesn't change, that is solid, vital and radical, because we're talking about radical stuff right now.

[14:49]

And when I think about the world of a meditator as a field of action, I see a field of grass. field of rippling grass. And I've been thinking a lot about grassroots strength because I think in this time we've seen a reoccurrence, a revitalization of grassroots strength, grassroots determination, grassroots wildness. I have a great definition of grassroots. People isolated or removed from a major political center find a groundwork or source of something a basis or origin, and nothing more than a blade of grass. Now, when I think of the world of meditation coming out of a field far beyond form and emptiness, I see a field of grass that doesn't depend on anything except a wild kind of likelity that's determined to make a difference, determined to grow no matter what.

[15:50]

In his book years ago, Orville Schell, his book, Fate of the Earth, He talked about after nuclear devastation, what would reoccur, what would remain? A blade of grass and cockroaches. Before time, beyond, they don't carry a lot of heavy baggage. But grassroots strength has a lot to teach us right now. And I think we're feeling in our world a reoccurrence of the strength of the grasses coming back. I hope it's alright to draw images from the natural world. I don't seem to... that's what occurs to me when I think of these qualities that come up for a meditator. The quality of meditating in a field of action and as a safe haven from the world. And when I say that this material is raw, it's raw because my mind wants to polarize and to say, well I'm in a field of action.

[16:52]

I don't want a safe haven from the world. I want a field of action that steps into the world. When in fact, a leaf from the Ginkgo tree can bring me back to myself and remind me that each, as Gertrude Stein said years ago when she traveled through the Louvre Museum, she looked at all the paintings and she said, each one is one. There are many of them. So I want us this morning to really consider the distinctiveness of what we're doing. And we have a habit often in meditation centers to see the sameness. But it's equally important to see our distinctions, to see our differences, so that we stand completely revealed against a blank sky when we see who we are. This is hard. sometimes. Because it means seeing our differences. We see peace and we see war.

[17:55]

We see action and we see a haven from action. We see the differences as problematic. But I think it's possible, actually. I think our work, and I hope this morning we can talk about this, our work is to find that particular edge or meeting place between extremes, the middle way. Now I've often thought the middle way is an averaging out of differences. I'm starting to feel very differently about this now. When I think about middle way practice these days, I think about a very narrow line where we meet, but very distinct, very distinct. I notice on the top of my notes this morning I wrote, a field far beyond form and emptiness, radical middle way. So how do we look at our distinct differences without making them all into it's all one brother and those kinds of things or without making them into a war zone where we're fighting with one another because of our differences?

[19:10]

This summer, as I was coming home from Plum Village, I was by myself, which was rather remarkable in itself, because I have a four-year-old daughter. And it was the first time I'd been apart from her. And I was in France for about three weeks, studying with 200 or more people from all over the world we met to talk about the unity of Vipassana and Zen tradition, Vipassana and Mahayana tradition. And we practiced very ardently together in the open fields of southern France. Maybe later, if you're interested, we can talk a little bit about some of the work that we did together. But what I wanted to mention this morning was, as I was coming home, I had about one day in Paris. And I arrived in the afternoon and found a little hotel went by foot to a museum I've always wanted to visit.

[20:16]

This name I can't think of right now. Anyway, it's a beautiful old museum in Paris, in an old hotel, with an incredible collection of Buddhist art. Or actually, I looked at it more as like going to visit a temple. Musee Guimet. Excuse me. There it is. And I went in and walked through the museum and I saw the beautiful walking Buddhas from Southeast Asia, the Buddhas whose fingers, hands look like leaves, you know, and they walk out into the world. And I looked at these figures. They were so serene and so determined. And I thought, there they are walking out into the world. And then the great familiar figures of the Mahayana tradition of Northern Asia with their stability. alive with wisdom and the willingness to look deeply. And I ended up, I stayed there until the museum was closing, and I was all alone in this room with beautiful figures from Tibet, from old Tibet.

[21:27]

And one in particular, one figure in particular entered into my consciousness quite deeply. It was the five heads of Avalokiteshvara. And they were beautiful, I think carved of wood. They were on three levels. There were three heads on the bottom level, facing forward, and then to the two, east and west, we can say. Facing south and east and west. And the heads on the bottom layer were beautiful heads, very calm, with determination and compassion in every line of the wood. And then on top of the three heads there was another head, a fourth head. And on top of that one, a fifth head. So it was like a pillar, this statue. And to my shock, the middle head was a terrific form of Avalokiteshvara with the lips pulled back and the teeth showing and the face was lunging out and there was kind of fire and determination and ferocity in that head.

[22:35]

was right at eye level and I just stared at it and was there, I felt myself sinking into that sculpture and recognizing what was being presented. And the top head was again the head, the beatific head of calmness and determination. So I stood there in front of this sculpture until the museum closed and they had to kind of carry me out dropped me off on the streets where I walk in the days away from that place. But those heads are vitally present in what I'm trying to bring up this morning about how we look at the distinction and the kind of determination it's going to take for us to do our work. They certainly were included in these heads. And I see them as representing what I'm talking about, what I'm trying to talk about.

[23:39]

Raw stuff. I'm also remembering years ago at Zen Center, Brother David was visiting. Brother David's a Benedictine monk who's a good friend of ours and studies Zen pretty avidly. Comes often to Zen Center. And he was visiting the Page Street building. And Richard Baker Roshi came to his room and knocked. came into his room and said that he was sorry to tell him that there had been an attempt on the Pope's life, that there had been an assassination attempt in the Vatican, in that area, in Rome. I believe it was Rome. And Brother David's response was a great teaching for Richard Baker. Rather than turning on the radio or rushing out to get a newspaper, He collected his papers that he'd been working on, put them away and went down and sat in the meditation hall and spent the morning sitting.

[24:44]

Now when I heard that story, it was very powerful because I had been told in the field that the Pope had been shot and I remember putting down my spade and running like wildfire home to listen to the radio. So when I heard about Brother David's response, it was very helpful to me. It reminded me of a different kind of field of activity, getting your information from a different source. And I think that that happens for the meditator. We'll draw from many different sources the kind of grassroots strength we need to do our work. This summer when I was in France, Natalie Goldberg gave me a poem that Katagiri Roshi wrote, which I think speaks to this topic.

[25:46]

I'd like to read it to you. And I also wanted to sing you a song, if it's all right, that came up out of our practice this summer. And I really want to stop and hear from you, talk together about this topic. vital enough for you so that we can actually have a discussion about this material. Let me read you the poem. I worked for many years with Kadagiri Roshi and I remember asking him, every time I saw him just about in Dokusan, I asked him about the backward step. being a forward-stepping kind of person. I wanted to know what is this stuff that Dogen Zenji is talking about when he talks about taking a backward step and illuminating your life by a backward step. So when I think about Kadagiri Roshi, I think about what it means to take a backward step.

[26:51]

It means, I think now as I consider this backward step business, a request for us to be aware of the distinctions of what we're doing in our lives, and also to drop them, to suspend them a little bit, and to see our common work. Anyway, this poem is called Peaceful Life. Being told that it is impossible, one believes in despair. Is that so? Being told that it is possible, one believes in excitement, that's right. But whichever is chosen, it does not fit one's heart neatly. Being asked, what is unfitting? I don't know what it is, but my heart knows somehow. I feel an irresistible desire to know what a mystery human is.

[27:54]

As to this mystery, clarifying, knowing how to live, knowing how to walk with people, demonstrating and teaching. This is Buddha. From my human eyes, I feel it's really impossible to become a Buddha. But this I, regarding what the Buddha does, vows to practice, to aspire, to be resolute, and tells myself, yes, I will. Just practice right here now and achieve continuity endlessly, forever. This is living in vow. Herein is one's peaceful life found. I always like to balance the mystery, this kind of wisdom, with poetry.

[29:12]

Here's a word from Mary Oliver. Every morning the world is created. It's called the morning poem. Every morning the world is created. Under the orange sticks of the sun, The heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches. And the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies. If it is your nature to be happy, you will swim away along the soft trails for hours. Your imagination alights everywhere. And if your spirit carries within it the thorn that is heavier than lead, It's all you can do to keep on trudging. There's still somewhere deep within you a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted. Each pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer heard and answered lavishly every morning, whether or not you've ever dared to be happy, whether or not you have ever dared to pray.

[30:25]

I like it when Kadagiri Roshi and Mary Oliver talk to each other. I think they have a lot to say about peaceful life, about clarifying, about looking at opposites and recognizing their resonance within us, about seeing the ginkgo tree and a field of grass and recognizing our own force in the work that we're doing, recognizing our own commitment to the timelessness that refuses to evolve, protected by monks, and to that field of grass that comes back even after nuclear holocaust. Field of action, safe havens in the world, happiness from a lily pond, sorrow of looking at the lilies in the pond. The meditator who looks deeply sees it all clarified and vivid.

[31:43]

I can't believe I'm going to do this, but I am actually going to sing a song from from the Vietnamese. This song is a poem. It's called Crystal Sunshine. And I want to close with the song. And then we can talk together. And then we can have tea. Right? This is a song that, you know, the residents of Plum Village are Vietnamese refugees from their country. political refugees. They're living in political asylum in the country of France, unable to go home, always thinking about Vietnam. And this song came up and was taught us years ago. They would sing this song coming home from market after buying vegetables in the French countryside and bringing them back to the Plum Village. This is the song that was sung, and especially in this time of year.

[33:00]

Translation is they keep saying Not adequate, but I think it's beautiful. So this is the song that they taught us for coming home at the end of the year Goes the Sun is in your shining eyes autumn rain now begins White clouds pass by the heaven A leaf just lands on your hand Your hair is blown in the wind Melancholy now returns The leaves are ripe on the branches And your sorrow has no end You walk slowly along the path The wind carries the cloud.

[34:04]

Trees suddenly get bright. Your eyes calmly keep wide open. The sky is like crystal. Autumn now has just begun. The afternoon meets your eyes. How many times has fall gone? The trees are lit like candles, and all sorrows have their end. This is dedicated to the leaves of the Ginkgo tree falling on the earth right now, and to all of us standing in your rain again and again. Thank you very much. I hope we can talk now. I hope you'll be comfortable.

[35:09]

Hi, Kathy. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Again, I apologize for bringing you such raw stuff, but tough. No, actually, just the opposite. You're very precious. Thank you. You're welcome. I miss you. Thank you very much. Two questions. One is, where is the character? Okay. Well, we went through a horrific amount of Zen slowness deciding where to site the Ginkgo. Because it's a huge creature. It's out of our time zone, without a doubt. It's from a different world. And it has a monstrous presence on the horizon. We planted it near the pond. Finally near, because the beauty of the Ginkgo is when it's backlit, it shines. shimmers, like in the song. Trees are lit like candles, so this tree shines. We wanted the setting sun in the west, so the sun as it goes down into the Pacific Ocean, shining through the ginkgo, would remind us of our ancient roots.

[36:15]

So we finally sited it there. From from doing earthwork Well one thing I know when I when I really consider myself, I don't feel that I'm an earthy person In fact, I'm not but I need the earth so I know that I I know that my work, my love for gardening comes out of knowing that I need this kind of solidity.

[37:24]

So, that's primary. And I know, too, from working with a lot of people who come to Green Gulch to volunteer these days, many people need to put their hands in the earth right now. It's extremely important. So, all of the work in the world, on the world, comes up out of recognition of my tremendous depth and need for the secrets of the earth, for listening to the secrets of the earth. And just one more thing in connection with that, about this backward step. My gardening teacher, Alan Chadwick, said that a good gardener always goes into the garden backwards. So that you'll be surprised. So that you'll remember that it's fresh in you. So that you won't think you know anything about the Earth because you don't. But you'll step in backwards so that you can make yourself available for the voice that wants to come through you from the Earth.

[38:32]

Yes? And for me, my work at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship for the last eight months or so has been just one event and activity after another. And it was too much. And I realized I wanted to do some just drawing in. And I hadn't quite realized that it was seasonal. And actually, it is seasonal. Definitely. And the idea of letting a field life fallow is, you know, in some sense that's what I was, that's what I've been instinctually trying to do. The problem is it's difficult. It's really difficult to let the field of one's life lie fallow, you know.

[39:43]

I mean, just yesterday I was thinking, well, this is kind of, you know, I was just kind of doing the, I've been filing, you know, and doing the books and thinking about stuff and not planning any big events. And I was thinking, this is kind of boring, you know. I mean, maybe I should schedule an event. They're scheduling you all the time, so why not? Right. But, no, I said, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to kind of plot on with this. But it's really difficult to let that go, to create a time. Even, like, here we can do it. We can sit Sashin, you know. But Sashin is, it's this interesting It is on this interesting line between letting something, letting oneself lie fallow and exposed to the elements and also it's very active and we have to do it. But in our working world, I mean, I don't have, I'm not even exactly sure what the question is.

[40:48]

All I know is it's hard. It's hard to not be assertively doing something. Well, it's just a primary question, what you're bringing up. I mean, I think that it's important when we think of fallowness, you know, sometimes, you've heard this expression, she's really gone to seed, she's really... That's a compliment. That's a compliment, but we don't recognize it as a compliment. We think that fallowness means a lack of, you know, a lack of creativity, but in fact, you know, the Hebrew word, this word sabbatical, let's look at that, this word sabbatical, where you, after seven years of hard work, you take a rest, you know, you take a year off from your usual function, right, and you rest, comes from the Hebrew word Shabbat, which is also the same root of sit.

[41:56]

Lashevet is to sit, sit down together. It has the same meaning, sit down in the middle of your life without doing so-called doing anything and see what comes up. Go to seed, get wild, you know, let yourself, let your mind get fallow. It's a requirement in ancient, in the ancient Middle East, it was a requirement to fallow your fields, to rest your fields every seven years, to not plant them, to let them restore themselves from wildness. Because don't think for one minute that things aren't going to happen. But you won't be in the same position of directing. And yet you'll... The idea is to give yourself the kind of creative opportunity to really look at what's present in your life. What's going to come up from this so-called resting field, the fallow field?

[42:57]

And our society does not support us in this. It's just, right? Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's many fallow people here thriving, but I doubt it. I mean, I haven't seen very many of them. Yes? It's maybe a little light compared to the... Good. But, oh. Everything was gray for months, whole. Right. Everything we see. Everything we see. What do you think? Well, if you were to dig up the roots of the willow, for example, bare and quiet by the creek, they're blood red. But what we see is of one tone. Right. It was just so gray for so long and so cold. Noelle Oxenham, I used to wear red, just bright red and bright pink and bright blue.

[44:03]

She called it her civic duty. And I'm noticing this year for the first time, I have a container garden on the deck because I just won't deal with the blackberry. Can't, just leave it. And so for the first time this year, I've decided not to let it all die out and have no color on the deck. But I vow to keep color all year this time. I don't know if that's the... It's going to keep you busy. Color will draw you out, which will be fine. It just feels like the right contradiction to the season. Good. And go with it. And just know the consequences. The most important thing for any gardener or meditator or worker is to know the consequences of our actions. in the world. So, you know, you make a choice and then you follow through and there are consequences for what you need to do. But it's not unlike Alan's question. We're looking at what is the source of our activity?

[45:04]

You know, where does our work in the world come from? And how do we take care of that field, that empty field, far beyond form and emptiness? How do we take care of it so that what comes up, maybe in your case, it's a riot of civic duty flowers in the winter. For him, he may need exactly a field that's uninterrupted and quiet in a different way, so that he can hear the music of his world coming up. So I mean, it's not, this is the business of looking at these distinctions. We don't want to blur them and mix them together, because they are distinct, what we're talking about. Haley. Yeah, well, thank you very much, Wendy. You're welcome. It's very nice to have you here. And I like particularly what you said about grass. I had never thought about grass roots. Oh, yeah. It's a fantastic image. This is the grass roots year. We know what happened. Yeah. They came into the concrete and lifted it up.

[46:06]

Yeah. Yeah. Somebody's been helping me to do a lot of gardening in the backyard. And a lot of soil amendment was put in. And now, of course, the grass is mysteriously arising. And I've also been working a lot with the crabgrass. And now crabgrass is really... These are the great Buddhist teachers. We should have, you know, a whole lineage chanting. This is just a gardening tip Saturday. Yvonne Rand calls it sneak Buddhism coming in through. It's definite. The garden is a great teacher. Crabgrass is like our interdependence. I mean, it's just all connected. So you see that clearly. You can't get rid of it either. But the grass roots is so mysterious. And so I want to ask you something about

[47:07]

In your life, the grassroots just come, but then there is this kind of manifestation of pattern and energy. You can deal with a possible question, but how have you experienced this kind of invisible grassroots body? coming so that it's visible and it's something, you know, going from the invisible energy to... I actually think grass is one of our greatest teachers, without a doubt. And I think I'm, in my experiences practicing gardening and meditation at the same time, I think that One would not want a world without pests, and without problems, and without strength.

[48:12]

You know, grass, the marvelous thing about grass, about running grass, and about clumping grass, all the different kinds of grass, the great monocots, one single blade plants, is that they're beyond our comprehension. We don't understand, and they are fantastic teachers. We have a crabgrass situation at Green Gulch. We're always trying to subdue it, or to remove it, or to eradicate it, and it consistently reappears in the same spot with kind of, you know, kind of a clarion call. Gunther, who's from Germany, you know, works in the garden, goes, yeah, the crabgrass is back. So this is our life, you know, this is our meditation. The crabgrass is bad, you know. We see nothing, we think there's nothing there, but we know! Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun!

[49:15]

It comes up, you know. So... And grassroots strength is a tremendous mystery, how it happens. I actually think it's quite significant that you asked about interdependence because part of the power of grass is that the roots are interconnected and they go, you know, there's a kind of grass that has lateral rooting that travels along the horizon or horizontal roots and if you cut it connected to a whole fiber of invisible roots. So that this, if you cut it on the edge of a bed, it can reoccur outside of the bed, just coming up. And it's showing a kind of vitality that we forget is operative in our society and in our world. We forget about this underground mass of running roots. So I think that Buddhist practitioners can feel, not only Buddhist practitioners, but people who are willing to do something crazy like sitting and looking at a wall for hours.

[50:23]

can actually feel that kind of vitality. Operative, traveling underneath the tongs where we're sitting. And it animates our life if we're not afraid of it. So I think that this is relevant for political activists, too, to recognize and remember that kind of vitality that runs underneath what we're doing. I'm thinking of a syllogism that Gregory Bateson offered, and it has to do with grass. This is great. Here's the way his mind worked. He said, man dies. on the fact that human beings die, and grass dies, and then all human beings are grass.

[51:35]

Anyway, there's a lot of food here for us to think about in this so-called empty field, far beyond form and emptiness. Somebody in the back, yeah. One simply has to respect, get it right, one feels a certain respect for a creature which simply has declined to evolve. Now, I felt, as you said that, I felt fear. Aha. I want my heart that refused to evolve to come around and see the new tree of botany.

[53:03]

Well, the ginkgo is a prehistoric fossil alive and well in this world right now. It's one of a kind. It's probably the most unusual tree that we have to look at in the world of botany because of its ancientness and its It's the one of a kind. And for that reason, I think, a really great teacher. It hasn't evolved, but it's been preserved. And it's teaching us great lessons about, as I was mentioning, about the ability of this ancient beast, or creature, to purify our air. None of the modern priests can do this. Doesn't that drive a kind of evolution? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Right, evolution, but it didn't change. It had a good thing going, and it's kept it going. 150 million years, no problem. Thanks to the Chinese monks and nuns who protected it from extinction.

[54:06]

This is not light stuff. We're looking. We're trying to look deeply. And I know we have to hit the bell, but maybe one more question. environment around me almost says, do something, anything, it doesn't matter, just don't be inactive. And often times I feel hurried along by the need to be doing something and not I want to be able to feel some respect for the need to wait for something to arrive which I would find worthy of doing or having.

[56:07]

Great advice. What Norman calls pop advice. Pop culture advice. And then we'll go outside and keep talking about it. But anyway, you know we say, don't just sit there, do something. Well, you can try this one out. Don't just do something, sit there. Follow that. Find where it takes you. To the empty field it takes you to. You see what comes up. Thank you.

[56:51]

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